The Seventh Man, page 559 by Max Brand
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die?"
The little dusty man grew dustier still. His mouth worked.
"Damn you," he whispered, and went for his gun.
It was out, his finger on the trigger, the barrel whipping into line, when the weapon in Barry's hand exploded. The sheriff spun on his heel and fell on his face. Three times, as he lay there, dead in all except the instinctive movement of his muscles, his right hand clawed at the empty holster at his side. The sixth man had died for Grey Molly.
The outer door of Billy's room crashed to the floor, and heavy feet thundered nearer. Barry ran to the window and whistled once, very high and thin. It brought a black horse racing around a corner nearby; it brought a wolf-dog from an opposite direction, and as they drew up beneath the window, he slid out and dropped lightly, catlike, to the ground. One leap brought him to the saddle, and Satan stretched out along the street.
Chapter XXVIII.
The Blood Of The Father
On the night of her failure at the cave, Kate came back to the cabin and went to her room without any word to Buck or Lee Haines, but when they sat before the fire, silent, or only murmuring, they could hear her moving about. Whatever sleep they got before morning was not free from dreams, for they knew that something was impending, and after breakfast they learned what it was. She struck straight out from the shoulder. She was going up to the cave and if Dan was away she would take Joan by force; she needed help; would they give it? They sat for a long time, looking at each other and then avoiding Kate with their eyes. It was not the fear of death but of something more which both of them connected with the figure of Whistling Dan. It was not until she took her light cartridge belt from the wall and buckled on her gun that they rose to follow. Before the first freshness of the morning passed they were winding up the side of the mountain, Kate a little in the lead, for she alone knew